The receptors looking for iodine but will take bromine instead - does that work the same with the other halogens? We need iodine and chloride but do we need fluoride or bromide? Perhaps because the body uses both iodine/iodide and chloride it can distinguish them apart and use them properly.

The thyroid will hold on to some iodine and occupation by some of the receptors by bromine has been shown to not affect thyroid function.

I have not seen any evidence that fluorine or chlorine can occupy iodine receptors in the thyroid.

Do we need fluoride and bromine. We do need small amounts of natural fluoride. There is no use for bromine in the system that I have ever seen other than to prevent an excess of iodine.

I think the article is missing an important point. If the algae was fresh then the enzymes would be required to digest the cell walls. On the other hand if the seaweed is dried first this should crack the cell walls anyway allowing access to the nutrients. This is similar to trying to make tea by steeping fresh mint leaves. Doing so will make a tea with virtually no flavor since the cell walls remain intact. If you dry of freeze the mint leaves first though this cracks the cell walls allowing the oils and other compounds within the cells to escape giving the tea a full flavor.

On another note I'm planning on putting some Lugol's in my chicken's watering can, not megadosing, just enough to keep the water clean and I'm assuming some benefit to the chicken and perhaps the egg eaters as well.

Something you may want to try is feeding your chickens dried nettle leaf. Nettle increases the growth of farm animals, and with chickens also makes stronger eggs with a higher protein content. It will make the yolks orange so don't freak out if you are not use to this color yolk.

If you have nettle growing wild in the area wear pants, long sleeve shirts and gloves when harvesting the nettle. It will sting and cause a rash if it touches the skin fresh. As it wilts it starts to lose its sting and loses it completely upon drying. I usually cut the plants down and gather up bunches. After they wilt for a few hours I start stripping the leaves off so they will dry faster preserving more nutrition. I spread them out on clean paper in a room with good airflow and out of the sunlight until dry. Once thoroughly dry the leaves can be crushed and fed to the animals. Nettle is rich in protein, vitamins and minerals and supports many systems of the body.

Yes that is the question that I also had. I am not dismissing it entirely however, as I saw a link to a study that measured bromine excretion in the urine. The amount of bromine went up with Iodine supplementation. So the why isn't necessary if the what is documented. I am too lazy to find the study though...

The body normally contains small amounts of bromine. And there is no question it can be displaced and excreted in the urine. What is really in question is is there enough bromine built up in the body and can enough be excreted quick enough to cause the symptoms of what people are referring to "bromine detox".

This one? Handbook of Pesticide Toxicology by Kreiger. Page 1846 discusses that intracellular bromine is excreted very slowly and lasted about 5 days with no further intake. The kidneys and liver held the highest concentrations, the blood the lowest. My slowly evolving opinion is that because iodine is excreted relatively quickly, it takes a lot of iodine over that 5 days to oust the more persistent bromine. IOW, once it settles in your tissues, bromine is a star boarder and can be evicted only with difficulty.

Do you have a link to this book showing this actual book. I found it under Googlebooks and ran a search for bromine and I saw two pages where the word bromine came up. Pages 1235 and 1237. Both pages were only discussing the exchange between bromine and chlorine. Nothing about excretion.

Totally out of the blue here, I want to share my scary experience with iodine just as a warning to others.

I have tried iodine in the past and it help my energy but always gives me extreme irritability, mild anxiety, and mild depression.

I recently added alpha-lipoic acid and l-carnitine to my supplements and then was using iodine to treat a cold sore. Without thinking about it I consumed a pretty large dose of iodine for 3-4 days in a row. That combination sent me in to a few days of severe and horrendous anxiety and depression. I am just now coming out the worst of it after about ten days.

The only things that saved me from going insane were that I was hopeful it was a temporary state and I had some anti-anxiety meds left over from when I used to take them before flying. I am not prone to anxiety at all and this was pretty rough.

Please be careful with iodine. Whether that was a "detox" reaction or a weird combination thing, it was life-changing and very, very scary.

Glad to hear you are doing better and thanks for sharing your experience. More people need to be aware of the potential dangers of iodine and need be careful with its use.

The really stupid thing about it is that I know I don't react well to even pretty low dose iodine. But I was putting it on the inside of my lip in large quantities - for some reason it didn't register with me that I was swallowing buckets of it!

Oy vey - live and learn. Yes, I hope someone who is trying iodine will at least keep in mind that if they start to feel odd they should be careful.

Even applying iodine straight to tissues can cause tissue corrosion. Be really careful when using iodine.

This one? Handbook of Pesticide Toxicology by Kreiger. Page 1846 discusses that intracellular bromine is excreted very slowly and lasted about 5 days with no further intake. The kidneys and liver held the highest concentrations, the blood the lowest. My slowly evolving opinion is that because iodine is excreted relatively quickly, it takes a lot of iodine over that 5 days to oust the more persistent bromine. IOW, once it settles in your tissues, bromine is a star boarder and can be evicted only with difficulty.

Do you have a link to this book showing this actual book. I found it under Googlebooks and ran a search for bromine and I saw two pages where the word bromine came up. Pages 1235 and 1237. Both pages were only discussing the exchange between bromine and chlorine. Nothing about excretion.

Something you may want to try is feeding your chickens dried nettle leaf. Nettle increases the growth of farm animals, and with chickens also makes stronger eggs with a higher protein content. It will make the yolks orange so don't freak out if you are not use to this color yolk.

If you have nettle growing wild in the area wear pants, long sleeve shirts and gloves when harvesting the nettle. It will sting and cause a rash if it touches the skin fresh. As it wilts it starts to lose its sting and loses it completely upon drying. I usually cut the plants down and gather up bunches. After they wilt for a few hours I start stripping the leaves off so they will dry faster preserving more nutrition. I spread them out on clean paper in a room with good airflow and out of the sunlight until dry. Once thoroughly dry the leaves can be crushed and fed to the animals. Nettle is rich in protein, vitamins and minerals and supports many systems of the body.

Chickens have the run of the back yard, grass, weeds, bugs. Nettle might be a good idea in the winter when there's only scrap greens from the kitchen or when we hang a cabbage for them to have fun with. And yes I am used to orange egg yolks, all other eggs pale in comparison.

Your wish is my command. ;-) Just a couple hours some friends sat in my kitchen and swapped war stories and gossip. The female half mentioned that, since starting iodine (2% -5 drops daily), the niggling pain at the front of her throat where the thyroid sits, has disappeared. Another friend, who is currently recovering from swollen glands and infected tongue, has seen her insulin needs cut by half since beginning iodine. And a drop on her finger disappeared in virtually seconds, leading her to the observation that she must really need iodine.
Just some more anecdotal evidence, but don't try to pry the iodine out of their hands..or else! Heheheh